By Request Collection 1. Jackie Braun

interview now?’

      ‘I thought you might have changed your mind.’

      His lips twisted. ‘Because I got my wrist slapped metaphorically? No, I haven’t changed my mind.’

      ‘But you won’t—I mean—bring this up again?’ she queried, her eyes dark and serious.

      ‘Tell you what,’ he drawled. ‘I won’t say a word on the subject.’

      Holly frowned. ‘That sounds as if there’s a trap there somewhere.’

      ‘Sorry, it’s the best I can come up with. So, are we on or off?’

      She hesitated then put down her glass, stood up and walked over to the louvres that framed the city view. She was in two minds, she realized. She sensed an element of danger between her and Brett Wyndham, but she had to admit he’d been honest, whereas she hadn’t—not entirely, anyway.

      On the other hand, her career was vitally important to her. It had been her mainstay through some dark days.

      She turned back to him. ‘On. My journalistic instincts seem to have won the day,’ she said ruefully. ‘Can I go home now?’

      ‘Of course.’ He stood up, called for Mike Rafferty, and when he came asked him if he’d found Holly’s car.

      ‘Sure did,’ Mike replied, and handed Holly the keys. ‘It’s parked downstairs, Miss Harding.’

      ‘Thank you,’ She hesitated then turned back to Brett Wyndham. ‘Well, goodnight.’

      ‘Goodnight, Holly,’ he said casually, and turned away.

      After he’d dined alone, Brett took his coffee to his study, where he intended to work on his next trip to Africa, only to find himself unable to concentrate.

      The fact that it was a girl coming between him and his plans was unusual.

      He swirled his coffee and lay back in his chair, Well, a change of direction in his life was on the cards; whilst he knew it was one he needed to make, would he ever be able to resist the call of the wild? Was that why he was unsettled?

      It was a juggling act holding the reins of all the Wyndham enterprises based here and being away so frequently. Also, there was something niggling at him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he suspected it was the need to establish some roots.

      In the meantime—in the short term, more accurately—a girl had come to his attention. A girl he wasn’t at all sure about.

      A girl who continued to hold him at arm’s length, now with the claim that she’d had her fingers burnt due to “chemistry”. How true was that? he wondered.

      Could it all be part of a plan to hold his interest? He’d come across many a plan to hold his interest, he reflected dryly.

      None of that changed the fact that she was attractive in a different kind of way—when did it ever? Good skin, beautiful eyes, clean, very slim lines; at times, sparkling intelligence and a cutting way with her repartee…

      He smiled suddenly as he thought of her ‘Holly Golightly from Tahiti’ act.

      He finished his coffee and contemplated another possibility. It was so long since any woman had said no to him he couldn’t help but be intrigued. Especially as he could have sworn there’d been that edgy, sensual pull between them almost from the moment they’d first crossed swords.

      Why, though, he wondered, had he gone to the lengths of dangling an interview before her?

      Because she was likeable, kissable, different?

      He drummed his fingers on the desk suddenly; or did he have in mind using her to deflect his ex-fiancée?

      ‘I’m off to Cairns—well, Palm Cove—then the bush for a few days tomorrow,’ Holly said to her mother that evening over a late dinner. She pushed away the remains of a tasty chicken casserole. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I got the Brett Wyndham interview after all.’

      Sylvia uttered a little cry of delight. ‘Holly! That’s marvellous. I wasn’t sure I did the right thing. I know you tried to gloss over it, but I wasn’t sure whether you really approved.’ Sylvia paused and frowned. ‘But why do you have to go to Cairns?’

      Holly made the swift decision to gloss over that bit and murmured something about Brett being short of time.

      Sylvia mulled over this for a moment, then she said, ‘He’s very good-looking, isn’t he? I mean he has a real presence, doesn’t he?’

      ‘I guess he does.’

      ‘Holly,’ Sylvia began, ‘I know that awful thing that happened to you is not going to be easy to get over. Actually, you’ve been simply marvellous with the way—’

      ‘Mum, don’t,’ Holly interrupted quietly.

      ‘But there has to be the right man for you out there, darling,’ Sylvia said passionately.

      ‘There probably is, but it’s not Brett Wyndham.’

      ‘How can you be so sure?’

      Holly moved the salt cellar to a different spot and sighed. ‘It’s just a feeling I have, Mum. For one thing, he’s a billionaire, so he could have anyone and there’s nothing so special about me. And, for me, I suppose it started with the way he behaved that day of the lunch. Then I read that he’d broken off his engagement to a girl who would have thought she was the last in a long line of women he’d escorted. And it seems,’ she said bitterly, ‘He’s a master at getting his own way.’

      ‘In view of all that,’ Sylvia replied a shade tartly, ‘I’m surprised you’re going to Palm Cove and the bush.’

      Holly shrugged. ‘I once made the decision I wouldn’t be a victim, and what really helped me was my career. I can’t knock back this opportunity to further it.’

      Glenn Shepherd said to Holly the next morning, ‘So it’s all set up?’

      ‘Yes. But there’s no personal side to it, Glenn, other than “ancient history”—I guess that means how he grew up—and he wants to have final say. It’s his work he wants to talk about, and some new project.’

      ‘Even that’s a scoop. So, you’re off to Palm Cove and points west?’

      Holly nodded then looked questioningly at her editor. ‘How did you know that? I mean, so soon?’

      ‘His PA has just been on the phone. They offered to pay for your flights; I knocked that back, but they will provide accommodation in Palm Cove—they own the resort, after all.’

      Holly grimaced. ‘I’d rather stay in a mud hut.’

      ‘Holly, is there anything you’re not telling me?’ Glenn stared at her interrogatively.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘No,’ Holly replied. ‘No.’

      ‘Enjoy yourself, then.’

      Cairns, in Far North Queensland, was always a pleasure to visit, Holly reflected as she landed on a commercial flight and took the courtesy bus out of town to Palm Cove. With its mountainous backdrop, its beaches, its lush flora, bougainvillea, hibiscus in many colours, yellow allamanda everywhere and its warm, humid air, you got a delightful sense of the tropics.

      It was also a touristy place—it was a stepping-off point for all the marvels of the Great Barrier Reef—but it wasn’t brash. It was relaxed, yet still retained its solid country-town air.

      Palm Cove, half an hour’s drive north of Cairns, was exclusive.

      Lovely resorts lined the road opposite the beach and there was a cosmopolitan air with open-air cafés and marvellous old melaleucas, or paper-bark trees, growing out of